The Histories by Herodotus — Book II, Life, medicine, and embalming

Among the Egyptians themselves, those who live in the cultivated country are the most assiduous of all men at preserving the memory of the past, and none whom I have questioned are so skilled in history. ^77.2They practice the following way of life. For three consecutive days in every month they purge themselves, pursuing health by means of emetics and drenches; for they think that it is from the food they eat that all sicknesses come to men. ^77.3Even without this, the Egyptians are the healthiest of all men, next to the Libyans; the explanation of which, in my opinion, is that the climate in all seasons is the same: for change is the great cause of men's falling sick, more especially changes of seasons. ^77.4They eat bread, making loaves which they call “cyllestis,” of coarse grain. For wine, they use a drink made from barley, for they have no vines in their country. They eat fish either raw and sun-dried, or preserved with brine. ^77.5Quails and ducks and small birds are salted and eaten raw; all other kinds of birds, as well as fish (except those that the Egyptians consider sacred) are eaten roasted or boiled.

⁷⁸After rich men's repasts, a man carries around an image in a coffin, painted and carved in exact imitation of a corpse two or four feet long. This he shows to each of the company, saying “While you drink and enjoy, look on this; for to this state you must come when you die.” Such is the custom at their symposia.

^79.1They keep the customs of their fathers, adding none to them. Among other notable customs of theirs is this, that they have one song, the Linus-song, which is sung in Phoenicia and Cyprus and elsewhere; each nation has a name of its own for this, ^79.2but it happens to be the same song that the Greeks sing, and call Linus; so that of many things in Egypt that amaze me, one is: where did the Egyptians get Linus? Plainly they have always sung this song; but in Egyptian Linus is called Maneros. ^79.3The Egyptians told me that Maneros was the only son of their first king, who died prematurely, and this dirge was sung by the Egyptians in his honor; and this, they said, was their earliest and their only chant.

^80.1There is a custom, too, which no Greeks except the Lacedaemonians have in common with the Egyptians: younger men, encountering their elders, yield the way and stand aside, and rise from their seats for them when they approach. ^80.2But they are like none of the Greeks in this: passers-by do not address each other, but salute by lowering the hand to the knee.

^81.1They wear linen tunics with fringes hanging about the legs, called “calasiris,” and loose white woolen mantles over these. But nothing woolen is brought into temples, or buried with them: that is impious. ^81.2They agree in this with practices called Orphic and Bacchic, but in fact Egyptian and Pythagorean: for it is impious, too, for one partaking of these rites to be buried in woolen wrappings. There is a sacred legend about this.

^82.1Other things originating with the Egyptians are these. Each month and day belong to one of the gods, and according to the day of one's birth are determined how one will fare and how one will end and what one will be like; those Greeks occupied with poetry exploit this. ^82.2More portents have been discovered by them than by all other peoples; when a portent occurs, they take note of the outcome and write it down; and if something of a like kind happens again, they think it will have a like result.

⁸³As to the art of divination among them, it belongs to no man, but to some of the gods; there are in their country oracles of Heracles, Apollo, Athena, Artemis, Ares, and Zeus, and of Leto (the most honored of all) in the town of Buto. Nevertheless, they have several ways of divination, not just one.

⁸⁴The practice of medicine is so specialized among them that each physician is a healer of one disease and no more. All the country is full of physicians, some of the eye, some of the teeth, some of what pertains to the belly, and some of internal diseases.

^85.1They mourn and bury the dead like this: whenever a man of note is lost to his house by death, all the women of the house daub their faces or heads with mud; then they leave the corpse in the house and roam about the city lamenting, with their garments girt around them and their breasts showing, and with them all the women of their relatives; ^85.2elsewhere, the men lament, with garments girt likewise. When this is done, they take the dead body to be embalmed.

^86.1There are men whose sole business this is and who have this special craft. ^86.2When a dead body is brought to them, they show those who brought it wooden models of corpses, painted likenesses; the most perfect way of embalming belongs, they say, to One whose name it would be impious for me to mention in treating such a matter; the second way, which they show, is less perfect than the first, and cheaper; and the third is the least costly of all. Having shown these, they ask those who brought the body in which way they desire to have it prepared. ^86.3Having agreed on a price, the bearers go away, and the workmen, left alone in their place, embalm the body. If they do this in the most perfect way, they first draw out part of the brain through the nostrils with an iron hook, and inject certain drugs into the rest. ^86.4Then, making a cut near the flank with a sharp knife of Ethiopian stone, they take out all the intestines, and clean the belly, rinsing it with palm wine and bruised spices; ^86.5they sew it up again after filling the belly with pure ground myrrh and casia and any other spices, except frankincense. After doing this, they conceal the body for seventy days, embalmed in saltpetre; no longer time is allowed for the embalming; ^86.6and when the seventy days have passed, they wash the body and wrap the whole of it in bandages of fine linen cloth, anointed with gum, which the Egyptians mostly use instead of glue; ^86.7then they give the dead man back to his friends. These make a hollow wooden figure like a man, in which they enclose the corpse, shut it up, and keep it safe in a coffin-chamber, placed erect against a wall.

^87.1That is how they prepare the dead in the most costly way; those who want the middle way and shun the costly, they prepare as follows. ^87.2The embalmers charge their syringes with cedar oil and fill the belly of the dead man with it, without making a cut or removing the intestines, but injecting the fluid through the anus and preventing it from running out; then they embalm the body for the appointed days; on the last day they drain the belly of the cedar oil which they put in before. ^87.3It has such great power as to bring out with it the internal organs and intestines all dissolved; meanwhile, the flesh is eaten away by the saltpetre, and in the end nothing is left of the body but hide and bones. Then the embalmers give back the dead body with no more ado.

⁸⁸The third manner of embalming, the preparation of the poorer dead, is this: they cleanse the belly with a purge, embalm the body for the seventy days and then give it back to be taken away.

^89.1Wives of notable men, and women of great beauty and reputation, are not at once given to the embalmers, but only after they have been dead for three or four days; ^89.2this is done to deter the embalmers from having intercourse with the women. For it is said that one was caught having intercourse with the fresh corpse of a woman, and was denounced by his fellow-workman.

^90.1Anyone, Egyptian or foreigner, known to have been carried off by a crocodile or drowned by the river itself, must by all means be embalmed and wrapped as attractively as possible and buried in a sacred coffin by the people of the place where he is cast ashore; ^90.2none of his relatives or friends may touch him, but his body is considered something more than human, and is handled and buried by the priests of the Nile themselves.

^91.1The Egyptians shun using Greek customs, and (generally speaking) the customs of all other peoples as well. Yet, though the rest are wary of this, there is a great city called Khemmis, in the Theban district, near the New City. ^91.2In this city is a square temple of Perseus son of Danae, in a grove of palm trees. Before this temple stand great stone columns; and at the entrance, two great stone statues. In the outer court there is a shrine with an image of Perseus standing in it. ^91.3The people of this Khemmis say that Perseus is seen often up and down this land, and often within the temple, and that the sandal he wears, which is four feet long, keeps turning up, and that when it does turn up, all Egypt prospers. ^91.4This is what they say; and their doings in honor of Perseus are Greek, inasmuch as they celebrate games that include every form of contest, and offer animals and cloaks and skins as prizes. ^91.5When I asked why Perseus appeared only to them, and why, unlike all other Egyptians, they celebrate games, they told me that Perseus was by lineage of their city; for Danaus and Lynceus, who travelled to Greece, were of Khemmis; and they traced descent from these down to Perseus. ^91.6They told how he came to Khemmis, too, when he came to Egypt for the reason alleged by the Greeks as well—namely, to bring the Gorgon's head from Libya —and recognized all his relatives; and how he had heard the name of Khemmis from his mother before he came to Egypt. It was at his bidding, they said, that they celebrated the games.

^92.1All these are the customs of Egyptians who live above the marsh country. Those who inhabit the marshes have the same customs as the rest of Egyptians, even that each man has one wife just like Greeks. They have, besides, devised means to make their food less costly. ^92.2When the river is in flood and flows over the plains, many lilies, which the Egyptians call lotus, grow in the water. They gather these and dry them in the sun; then they crush the poppy-like center of the plant and bake loaves of it. ^92.3The root of this lotus is edible also, and of a sweetish taste; it is round, and the size of an apple. ^92.4Other lilies grow in the river, too, that are like roses; the fruit of these is found in a calyx springing from the root by a separate stalk, and is most like a comb made by wasps; this produces many edible seeds as big as olive pits, which are eaten both fresh and dried. ^92.5They also use the byblus which grows annually: it is gathered from the marshes, the top of it cut off and put to other uses, and the lower part, about twenty inches long, eaten or sold. Those who wish to use the byblus at its very best, roast it before eating in a red-hot oven. Some live on fish alone. They catch the fish, take out the intestines, then dry them in the sun and eat them dried.

^93.1Fish that go in schools are seldom born in rivers; they are raised in the lakes, and this is how they behave: when the desire of spawning comes on them, they swim out to sea in schools, the males leading, and throwing out their milt, while the females come after and swallow and conceive from it. ^93.2When the females have grown heavy in the sea, then all the fish swim back to their own haunts. But the same no longer lead; now the leadership goes to the females. They go before in a school as the males had, and now and then throw off some of their eggs (which are like millet-seeds), which the males devour as they follow. These millet-seeds, or eggs, are fish. ^93.3The fish that are reared come from the eggs that survive and are not devoured. Those fish that are caught while swimming seawards show bruises on the left side of their heads; those that are caught returning, on the right side. ^93.4This happens because they keep close to the left bank as they swim seawards, and keep to the same bank also on their return, grazing it and keeping in contact with it as well as they can, I suppose lest the current make them miss their way. ^93.5When the Nile begins to rise, hollow and marshy places near the river are the first to begin to fill, the water trickling through from the river, and as soon as they are flooded, they are suddenly full of little fishes. ^93.6Where these probably come from, I believe that I can guess. When the Nile falls, the fish have dropped their eggs into the mud before they leave with the last of the water; and when in the course of time the flood comes again in the following year, from these eggs at once come the fish.

^94.1So much, then, for the fish. The Egyptians who live around the marshes use an oil drawn from the castor-berry, which they call kiki. They sow this plant, which grows wild in Hellas, on the banks of the rivers and lakes; ^94.2sown in Egypt, it produces abundant fruit, though malodorous; when they gather this, some bruise and press it, others boil after roasting it, and collect the liquid that comes from it. This is thick and useful as oil for lamps, and gives off a strong smell.

^95.1Against the mosquitos that abound, the following have been devised by them: those who dwell higher up than the marshy country are well served by the towers where they ascend to sleep, for the winds prevent the mosquitos from flying aloft; ^95.2those living about the marshes have a different recourse, instead of the towers. Every one of them has a net, with which he catches fish by day, and at night he sets it around the bed where he rests, then creeps under it and sleeps. ^95.3If he sleeps wrapped in a garment or cloth, the mosquitos bite through it; but through the net they absolutely do not even venture.

^96.1The boats in which they carry cargo are made of the acacia, which is most like the lotus of Cyrene in form, and its sap is gum. Of this tree they cut logs of four feet long and lay them like courses of bricks, and build the boat ^96.2by fastening these four foot logs to long and close-set stakes; and having done so, they set crossbeams athwart and on the logs. They use no ribs. They caulk the seams within with byblus. ^96.3There is one rudder, passing through a hole in the boat's keel. The mast is of acacia-wood and the sails of byblus. These boats cannot move upstream unless a brisk breeze continues; they are towed from the bank; but downstream they are managed thus: ^96.4they have a raft made of tamarisk wood, fastened together with matting of reeds, and a pierced stone of about two talents' weight; the raft is let go to float down ahead of the boat, connected to it by a rope, and the stone is connected by a rope to the after part of the boat. ^96.5So, driven by the current, the raft floats swiftly and tows the “baris” (which is the name of these boats,) and the stone dragging behind on the river bottom keeps the boat's course straight. There are many of these boats; some are of many thousand talents' burden.

^97.1When the Nile overflows the land, only the towns are seen high and dry above the water, very like the islands in the Aegean sea. These alone stand out, the rest of Egypt being a sheet of water. So when this happens, folk are not ferried, as usual, in the course of the stream, but clean over the plain. ^97.2Indeed, the boat going up from Naucratis to Memphis passes close by the pyramids themselves, though the course does not go by here, but by the Delta's point and the town Cercasorus; but your voyage from the sea and Canobus to Naucratis will take you over the plain near the town of Anthylla and that which is called Arkhandrus' town.

^98.1Anthylla is a town of some reputation, and is especially assigned to the consort of the reigning king of Egypt, to provide her shoes. This has been done since Egypt has been under Persian dominion. ^98.2The other town, I think, is named after Arkhandrus son of Phthius the Achaean, and son-in-law of Danaus; for it is called Arkhandrus' town. It may be that there was another Arkhandrus; but the name is not Egyptian.